Forget About Your New Year’s Resolution!

January 7, 2016

How did your New Year’s resolution for 2015 hold up? How’s the one for this year going?

If you’re like most people, the resolution you made last year didn’t do much to change your life. Or much of anything else. That’s ok. You’re still here and a brand new year has begun. New Year. New Life? It can be if you let it.

Before you give up on your resolution, take a moment to look back at the year that was. We all wanted something for ourselves last year—to eat better, work out more, make more money. Or we just wanted “things to be different.”

So what changed for you this year? What stayed the same? What’s better? What do you wish was different?

I like to make a list before the New Year starts. It’s the best way to stay in check. Looking at my list, I see I didn’t accomplish everything I set out to, and that’s ok. I did accomplish several things so I’m happy about that. Your list is just that, a set of goals you can refer to during the year to see how you’re doing, because we often forget what we’re intending to do in the chaos that ensues in the first week of the New Year.

Resolutions are too broad, undefined, and can’t be measured easily. If I say “I am going to change my life this year” or “I just want things to be different,” neither of those things mean much without some definition and parameters: What part of my life will I change? What will I do to change it? How much will I change it? By when will I change it? How will measure the changes I make?

I like to make a list with three categories: Personal, Spiritual, Career, and set quantifiable goals for each, e.g. workout 3x/a week for 45 minutes, improve 1 business process at work, meditate 4x/a week for 10 minutes, read one business book/month, etc.

You can set as many or as few goals as you want, as big as writing a book or small as reading a book. The sky is the limit on this, because they’re just goals that give you something to strive for and serve as a roadmap. If you don’t accomplish them all, just move them to the top of next year’s list and celebrate the ones you do achieve. Even accomplishing just one goal is still better than zero.

Break out the Champagne
If you really want to change something this year, you have to be clear on what that is and how you want to change it, and hold yourself accountable, otherwise, your life will be much the same next year.

Next year when you raise your glass to the New Year, toast yourself and the goals you achieve—and prepare to achieve even bigger ones in the coming years!